Book reviews...
May. 28th, 2012 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinished Silivia Day's Bared to You the other day, was a bit disappointing, but if the sequel ever comes out, I may get it - just to see where she goes with it. Day isn't that good with dialogue. And focuses too much on the sex scenes, which get rather repetitive after a bit (granted it is erotica, but it would help greatly if they were less plain vanilla erotica...this is similar to fight scenes actually, if you don't spice it up the reader feels like they've read the same scene over and over again and starts skimming.)
Her characters also aren't quite believable, too OTT. Gideon is too beautiful for words. Eva is too pretty for words. Both are insanely wealthy. And have horrible sexual abuse in their background. It's sort of the 50 Shades storyline amped up to 100, with none of the quirkiness or humor filtered in. If you like this particular trope - tortured guy who falls insanely in love with quirky gal...skip Day and go to 50 Shades. You can thank me later or not as the case may be. James, possibly due to having a television script writer as a hubby and being in the tv industry herself, is a lot better at dialogue than Day is. A lot better.
That said? Currently reading Lisa Keyplas Rainshadow County, which is better written than both, and has better dialogue and more interesting female characters than both. Not sure of the male characters yet...they are on the fringes at the moment. It has it's standard romance novel cliches and tropes, and is fairly conventional too (if there is an unconventional romance novel out there - I've yet to find it, no wait, I did find one but I'm not sure I'm up to reading it - here - Captive in the Dark - which is about an ex-sex slave seeking vengeance on his captors years later, so he kidnaps an innocent girl and turns her into submissive sex slave in order to get into the inner circle and they well, fall in love. - I don't think I want to read that. According to the reviews and blurb - the writer sort of gets graphic about how the hero turns the girl into a sex slave. A bit too Story of O for my taste and I couldn't read Story of O. But it is definitely unconventional...The dark erotica genre can definitely be unconventional. ) The Lisa Keyplas book is a step away from all that - a very big step away...it's more chick-lit romance than erotica romance. Everyone is sane. No tortured souls. No BDSM. But there is magic in the book - the lead character can turn glass into butterflies and fireflies. I'm enjoying it so far, but it's conventional. Not recommended to people who aren't heterosexual. Actually I've only read two romance novels in my life time that weren't heteronormative, maybe three? Poppy Z Brite's book (can't remember the name of it - was a ghost story/paranormal, romance between two men), Nancy Kay Shapiro's What Love Means to You People, and something by Jeannette Winterset.
IF you know of an unconventional romance lurking out there somewhere...feel free to rec it.
I'll try a sample. I'm willing to try anything...you should see my Good Reads account.
Her characters also aren't quite believable, too OTT. Gideon is too beautiful for words. Eva is too pretty for words. Both are insanely wealthy. And have horrible sexual abuse in their background. It's sort of the 50 Shades storyline amped up to 100, with none of the quirkiness or humor filtered in. If you like this particular trope - tortured guy who falls insanely in love with quirky gal...skip Day and go to 50 Shades. You can thank me later or not as the case may be. James, possibly due to having a television script writer as a hubby and being in the tv industry herself, is a lot better at dialogue than Day is. A lot better.
That said? Currently reading Lisa Keyplas Rainshadow County, which is better written than both, and has better dialogue and more interesting female characters than both. Not sure of the male characters yet...they are on the fringes at the moment. It has it's standard romance novel cliches and tropes, and is fairly conventional too (if there is an unconventional romance novel out there - I've yet to find it, no wait, I did find one but I'm not sure I'm up to reading it - here - Captive in the Dark - which is about an ex-sex slave seeking vengeance on his captors years later, so he kidnaps an innocent girl and turns her into submissive sex slave in order to get into the inner circle and they well, fall in love. - I don't think I want to read that. According to the reviews and blurb - the writer sort of gets graphic about how the hero turns the girl into a sex slave. A bit too Story of O for my taste and I couldn't read Story of O. But it is definitely unconventional...The dark erotica genre can definitely be unconventional. ) The Lisa Keyplas book is a step away from all that - a very big step away...it's more chick-lit romance than erotica romance. Everyone is sane. No tortured souls. No BDSM. But there is magic in the book - the lead character can turn glass into butterflies and fireflies. I'm enjoying it so far, but it's conventional. Not recommended to people who aren't heterosexual. Actually I've only read two romance novels in my life time that weren't heteronormative, maybe three? Poppy Z Brite's book (can't remember the name of it - was a ghost story/paranormal, romance between two men), Nancy Kay Shapiro's What Love Means to You People, and something by Jeannette Winterset.
IF you know of an unconventional romance lurking out there somewhere...feel free to rec it.
I'll try a sample. I'm willing to try anything...you should see my Good Reads account.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 07:47 pm (UTC)It's just a wonderful story, and one I've loved for years. And I mean years, I was probably only 12 or 13 when I read it for the first time.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 10:23 pm (UTC)